Marital Privilege

“And your background makes you objective?” She shook her head. “Just because your father bribed cops in New York when you were growing up, doesn’t mean all the officers in the entire country are on his payroll.”

“Maybe not. But the trick is finding out which ones are. Before you trust them.”

“Do you have any reason to believe the Beaver Falls police are corrupt? Do you have any proof?”

“I have a feeling.”

“A feeling?”

“Yes. And in light of what’s happened, a feeling is enough. We can’t take chances.”

“I’m not taking chances. I’m just not going to let your paranoia prevent me from getting help.” Or from leaving you. She hadn’t said it, but the sentiment was there, hanging in the air between them like an iron curtain.

“It’s not paranoia.”

“Really? You haven’t given me one reason I shouldn’t rely on the Beaver Falls police.”

“Before I found Sally and the others, I called 911. I reported the gas leak and—”

“The others?”

Alec cringed. He had forgotten Laura didn’t know about the massacre he’d stumbled across. The deaths. The explosion. “I went to the restaurant to look for you. That’s where I found Sally.”

“And others.” The words came out on a whisper, as if she was afraid to know more, but couldn’t keep herself from asking.

“Yes. There were others.”

“Who?”

He’d give anything not to tell her. The news of Sally’s death was enough for Laura to come to terms with. But knowing Laura, she would never let it go. Not until she knew everything. “Your prep cook, Tim.”

She flinched as if he’d physically hit her.

“One of your waitresses.”

“Traci. Traci was supposed to open the dining room for lunch.” Her voice was robotic, as if she was keeping the names at a distance, not really thinking about what it all meant. “No one else. Please, no one else.”

“The guy that works for the produce company.”

“Ed.”

“I didn’t see anyone else.” As if the three he’d just named plus Sally weren’t enough.

She leaned back in her seat, breathing shallowly through her mouth. The only sound inside the van was the thrashing wind and the miles humming by under the tires.

Finally she turned her head toward him. “What does any of this have to do with not trusting the police?”

“I smelled a gas leak when I entered the building. I called 911. About the leak. About my suspicion that there was more going on. The police never showed. Not the entire time I was there.”

“Because their response time wasn’t as fast as you thought it should be, you assume the entire Beaver Falls Police Department is working for your father?”

She made him sound like he was paranoid. “It wouldn’t have to be the entire department. It could be one or two officers that delayed their response. Or the dispatcher. But I guarantee it wasn’t a coincidence that the police didn’t arrive before the gas explosion and fire destroyed evidence of the murders.”

“The restaurant exploded?” She gasped in a breath, weathering the shock as she had the news of the deaths.

Alec watched her out of the corner of his eye. There was no telling how these shocks, one after another, would affect her health. At just over seven months along, it couldn’t be good for her. Or for the baby. He’d heard enough stories of premature labor to scare the piss out of him.

But short of lying, he didn’t know how to protect her from the truth. And he’d lied to Laura enough. More lies, even to protect her, would only make things worse. “I know this whole thing seems insane. It’s only natural you’d want to go to the police, to trust them. Especially since your father was a cop. But if you knew my father, if you’d seen what he’s capable of…”

“I’ve seen enough to know we can’t handle this alone.”

She might be right. God knew he’d come awfully close to losing everything this morning, closer than he could bear thinking about. But who the hell could they trust? In his father’s world, trust was for dead men. And whether he liked it or not, this morning he’d been sucked back into his father’s world. And so had Laura. “We don’t have a choice. We have to handle this alone.”

She shook her head, as if she couldn’t imagine it.

She probably couldn’t. She was raised by a cop, taught to trust cops. He wasn’t. And the one time he’d trusted the authorities, they’d let him down. It had taken ten years, but they let him down nonetheless. “I understand you’re angry with me. Hell, you probably hate me. That’s okay. I deserve it. But you need to think beyond that. You have to trust me. You have no other choice.”

“No. I have a choice.” She narrowed her eyes to brown slits and set her chin. “I don’t trust you. I don’t even know you. I want out. Now. Take me to the police station.”

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel until his knuckles ached. “Like hell.”

“You’re kidnapping me?”

“Damn it, Laura. I’m not staking our lives on the police. If that means I’m kidnapping you, so be it.”

She reached toward him. Before he realized what she was doing, she unsnapped his cell phone from his belt. She flipped the phone open. “Now do you want to drop me off at the station, or should we do this the hard way?”

Alec gritted his teeth. He could just pull the car over and wrestle the phone from her before she had a chance to punch in 911, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not to Laura. “All right. Call them.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Tell them to meet you in an hour at Conason Park. Near the shelter.”

“What are you up to?”

He didn’t answer. She’d understand soon enough. If his plan worked, either Laura would be as safe as possible with the cops or as safe as possible with him. And all that mattered now was that she and the baby were as safe as they could be. “Make the call.”

LAURA JOINED ALEC on the edge of the bluff overlooking Bear River and the Conason Park shelter. A cool wind gushed through the valley and swirled over the bluffs. Laura shivered and pulled the blanket, rummaged from the winter driving supplies in the van, tighter around her nightgown. She hadn’t felt cold since she’d become pregnant. Through the Wisconsin winter she’d worn short-sleeved tops most days. But even though she wasn’t exactly dressed, the chill she felt now went deeper than any clothing or blanket could warm. It drilled into the very marrow of her bones.

She wanted to get this over with. Leaving the life she’d thought she had, the husband she thought she knew, was painful enough. The last thing she wanted to do was draw it out. But Alec had insisted they stay on top of the bluff, watch for the police’s arrival and make sure his father’s thugs were nowhere in sight before he would let her go.

Shading her eyes with one hand, she peered down into the valley. Noon sun sparkled off the river that wound through the park. Maples and oaks had yet to leaf out, and their bare branches camouflaged little of the parking lot, playground and shelter below. From here they could see the park entrances and roads approaching the shelter in both directions. If something wasn’t on the up-and-up, they would see it.

It seemed Alec had thought of everything.

No surprise. She’d always known he was smart. His intelligence was one of the things that attracted her to him the first time he’d shown up at her newly established restaurant to take her liquor order. What she hadn’t recognized was his cunning. She’d never guessed he could think like a criminal, anticipate what they would do, how they would strike.

But then, she hadn’t known so many things about him.

He stood next to her, eyes shifting back and forth, covering both entrances of the park. Tension rolled off him in waves. His body seemed to vibrate with restlessness.

He’d always carried a certain intensity, a need to move, ever since she’d met him. If seated, he’d jiggle his leg. If standing, he’d pace. More than once, she’d jokingly asked him why he needed to keep moving, what he was running from.

Now she knew.

“Where will you go?” The question escaped her lips before she could bite it back. She probably shouldn’t have asked it. She probably shouldn’t care.

He didn’t look at her, his concentration rooted to the park. “I don’t know. Maybe the Twin Cities. Maybe farther. Somewhere I can get lost in the crowds.”

“Your money won’t last long in a city.”

“I’ll find work. Off the books.”

That was easy enough. Although she never used undocumented workers, she knew countless other businesses did. There were a lot of advantages for the business owner. Low wages. No need to provide health care and other benefits. And no unemployment, worker’s compensation or payroll tax. The underground economy was alive and well in the U.S. It was certainly possible for Alec to simply vanish from the system. She would never see him again.

And he would never know their son.

She steeled herself against the thought. Alec had made his bed when he’d decided to lie to her about who he really was. She couldn’t let herself feel sorry for him. She wouldn’t. But still, the idea that he would miss his son’s birth, his first words, his first steps, left a hollow feeling in her chest.

But even worse, their son wouldn’t have a dad.

As much stress as her father’s job had caused during her childhood, she couldn’t have imagined growing up without him. His encouragement. His unwavering faith in her. His love.

She wanted those things for her child. When she’d chosen to marry Alec, she’d done so as much for their future children as she had for herself. She’d thought he’d be a gentle and caring father. A protector who would keep them safe. A role model.

How could she have been so wrong?

She couldn’t think about it. None of this was in her control. Alec’s lies had rendered all her plans useless. All her dreams of a happy family unattainable. She just had to do the best she could from here on out. “What am I supposed to tell the baby about you?”

“Nothing.”

“I have to tell him something. He deserves to know.”

“I don’t want him to be part of that world. My father’s world. I don’t want him to know anything about it.” Muscles clenched at the corners of his jaw. Tendons stood out along his neck. “If everything works out with the police the way you’re hoping it will, promise me you’ll tell him I’m dead.”

“I’m not going to lie.”

“You don’t know it will be a lie.”

His words knocked the air from her lungs. He was right. She wouldn’t know. His father could find him, kill him, and she would never know.

“Promise me.”

Tightness pinched her throat. Swallowing hard, she smoothed her hair back from her face and scanned the park through the haze of leafless branches. “I’ll tell him you’re dead.”

“Good.”

Where were the police? Why weren’t they here by now?

As if conjured by her thoughts, a sedan slowed on the highway below. It swung into the entrance of the park and crept toward the parking lot. She’d never cared about makes and models of cars, couldn’t tell one from another, but the plain lines and dark blue of this one seemed like just the type the police favored for their unmarked cars.

The time had come.

She forced herself to keep her eyes on the car. She couldn’t allow herself to glance at Alec, to look one last time at the intense gray of his eyes, the gentle hook of his nose, the full lips she’d once relished kissing. It wouldn’t get her anywhere. It would only make the moment more bitter. Only remind her of what she’d once thought she’d had with him. What she’d never really had at all.

The car wound past the first parking lot and toward the shelter.

“There’s a cabin up near Minoqua. On Lake Tomahawk. 1342 Brinberry Road.” She could feel his gaze on her, sense the question in his eyes. “It was my dad’s fishing and hunting cabin. The one in pictures of me as a kid. Before he died, he sold it to his former partner. No one uses it until summer, so it should be empty this time of year. The key is hanging under the edge of the siding, near the door.”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

The car slowed near a bank of trees.

Drawing a deep breath of resolve, Laura offered her gun to Alec, grip first.

Alec met it with a flat palm, pushing the weapon back to her. “Keep it.”

“I won’t be able to keep it. Not in police custody.” She looked up at him. But he was watching the car. She followed his gaze.

The car had come to a complete stop. Now it backed into a small, gravel service path concealed by trees on one side, and the park shelter on the other. A beam of sunlight penetrated the windshield, shining like a spotlight on the occupants.

Laura narrowed her eyes, straining to see. The driver looked young, not familiar. But the passenger—

She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and stared at the cut and bloodied face of the man who had dragged her from her bed. The man who had said he’d killed Sally.

Sergei Komorov.

“Do you still think the Beaver Falls Police Department will protect you?” Alec said, his voice as low and ominous as a rumble of thunder.

Her mind spun. She didn’t know what to think anymore. All she knew was that there would be no officers whisking her and her baby to safety. There was no safety anymore.

For any of them.

Chapter Five

Evening shadows slid into the forest as Laura ran her hand under the edge of the cabin’s siding. Except for their time at the park, she’d spent all day in the van. And even though her belly was awkwardly in the way, it felt good to bend and stretch out her hamstrings. Her fingers brushed rough wood and swiped through webs and sticky egg sacks left by last year’s crop of spiders. She shivered, but kept groping until her fingers hit a protruding nail. She slid her fingers down the nail, gripped the key and slipped it free. At least the key’s hiding spot hadn’t changed. Pushing herself to her feet, she circled to the door.

Other than the crackle of sticks under Alec’s feet as he walked around the cabin’s perimeter, the forest was silent. In summer, the song of frogs along the lakeshore and the chirp of crickets filled the dusk, finally giving way to the haunting calls of loons late into the night. But in April the lake was just waking up from winter, and only the birds broke their silence.

She slipped the key into the lock. Rusty tumblers ground and scraped as the dead bolt slid open. Alec had said he wanted to collect firewood to ward off the north woods chill before he joined her in the cabin. But Laura knew his real motivation for exploring the forest surrounding the cabin had more to do with security than warmth. It was just as well. She hadn’t set foot in the cabin since her father had become sick. And with the uncertain way she felt about Alec, she’d rather confront the house and her memories alone.

She turned the knob and pushed. Hinges creaked as it swung wide. Picking up the bags of groceries, clothing and bandages for Alec’s arm Alec had bought at a Wal-Mart on the way out of Beaver Falls, she stepped onto the worn white-and-yellow-patterned linoleum she remembered from childhood.

Her mother’s deep-gold curtains had been replaced with a cheery yellow-and-red check, but the rest of the kitchen appeared untouched. Leave it to Frank to keep the same decor. He probably couldn’t bring himself to change anything his former partner had picked out unless he was forced.

Laura breathed in the faint scent of mildew and mothballs. Even that hadn’t changed. She remembered stashing mothballs around the cabin before winter to keep the mice out. Apparently, that strategy still worked.

Setting the bags on the kitchen counter, she pulled out the maternity clothing, undergarments and shoes Alec had bought, and stepped through the archway leading into the cabin’s only other room. This room, too, was just as she remembered. Sure there were a few new sticks of furniture: a pleather recliner, a sofa bed near the wood-burning stove. But the ancient couch still dominated the room that doubled as gathering area and bedroom, its orange stripes as vibrantly loud as ever. The Bengal tiger of couches, her dad used to call it.

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